Sick City: A Novel [Paperback]

Tony O'Neill (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 20, 2010

Meet Jeffrey and Randal, two desperate junkies and your guides on this top-to-bottom fun-house tour of Hollywood's underbelly. From infamous crime scenes to celebrity treatment centers, Sick City is an outrageous page-turning adventure set in the sun-bleached wilds of LA.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Former heroin addict O’Neill works a similar vein to his previous titles, which include Down and Out on the Murder Mile (2008). Here, aging, drug-snarfing rent boy Jeffrey inherits one hell of a hand-me-down from his suddenly dead ex-cop lover: a 16mm film featuring Sharon Tate at the center of an all-star Hollywood gangbang. Checking himself into rehab, Jeffrey meets Randal, a meth-using son of movie-industry royalty, and the two of them plot to fence the film. For them, this is honest work, but their utter lack of willpower means they keep shooting themselves in the foot (and arm, leg, and neck). Although the maguffin provides forward momentum, this ensemble of grotesques stumbles through skid-row L.A. like a Robert Altman film scripted by Charles Bukowski and William S. Burroughs. The plot could use tightening—one subplot goes nowhere, while another is essential—but the characters are unforgettable; they live and breathe, and you sure as hell wouldn’t want them to breathe on you. Sick City is appealing in its unsentimentalism, disgusting in its details—and, almost unbelievably, funny. --Keir Graff

Review

“Sick City is fun, twisted and brutal. One of the best books written about LA in a long time. O’Neill could be our generation’s Jim Thompson.” (James Frey, author of Bright Shiny Morning )

“Tony O’Neill works his L.A. people the way Dutch Leonard had his hand down the pants of every degenerate in his great Detroit novels. Cover your ears, ladies; thanks to O’Neill, the cries of pain can be heard from one sick city to another. Just use your eyes.” (Barry Gifford, author of Wild at Heart )

“Tony O’Neill writes about the Hollywood I know as well as any writer alive. His characters are a punch in the face, scorchingly real. His dialogue is note-perfect.” (Dan Fante, author of 86'd )

“I f**king loved it -- the piss-soaked floors, the vomit-impastoed car interiors, the groans and grunts from every room. It’s like some weirdly loveable purgatory.” (Tom McCarthy, author of Remainder )

“Addictive Noir! Rarely do you find a novel that is both fast paced and well observed, action packed, yet high-grade poetic. Once you start it, just try putting it down.” (Arthur Nersesian, author of The F*ck Up )

“A wildly fun read.” (Willamette Week )

“You may feel disturbed by this very realistic account of addicts on a mission.” (CurledUp.com )

“Like the bastard child of Dashiell Hammett and Evelyn Waugh....With Sick City, Tony O’Neil confirms his comic voice....If dark humor, punk sensibility, literary sophistication and pointed satire are among your addictions, you should find Sick City a rewarding read.” (The Rumpus.net )

“O’Neill delivers a Hollywood thriller that’s equal parts acerbic social commentary à la Burroughs’s Naked Lunch and extraordinary crime fiction misadventure....Fans of Chuck Palahniuk and Warren Ellis will cherish this twisted tale.” (Publishers Weekly (starred review) )

“Sick City is a disturbingly twisted ride through Hollywood’s underbelly with a degenerate cast of colorfully interwoven characters. I loved the whole f**ked up journey.” (Slash )

“Reading Tony O’Neill is like traveling downhill in a car with no lights at terrific speed and driven by a four-year-old child on meth. The signposts along the way are all marked ‘Nowhere.’” (Sebastian Horsley, author of Dandy in the Underworld )

“Like a Robert Altman film scripted by Charles Bukowski and William S. Burroughs...Sick City is appealing in its unsentimentalism, disgusting in its details--and, almost unbelievably, funny.” (Booklist )

“[An] inspired comedy of errors…a post-punk crack at Hollywood’s legacy that’s funnier than its predecessor, and just as cringe-inducing…infused with enough black humor to make Bill Burroughs choke on his apple” (Kirkus Reviews )

“What Sick City does is takes the grit and grime of, say, Naked Lunch by William Burroughs and makes it coherent…within the context of a caper novel, as imagined by Elmore Leonard….Sick City makes Jim Thompson’s novels look like Little Golden Books.” (Bookreporter.com )

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Harper Perennial (July 20, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061789747
• ISBN-13: 978-0061789748
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 4.6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #533,023 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An unblinking and stark look into the lives of drug addicts and dealers, September 24, 2010

By 

Bookreporter (New York, New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sick City: A Novel (Paperback)

SICK CITY is set in Los Angeles, though the events described here could take place in virtually any city or country where the illicit drug trade has taken hold. But L.A. is arguably the perfect tableau for it, given that location's reputation as a place where dreams come true or are shattered, and everything and everyone is for sale.

Tony O'Neill's novel is about drugs and the people who take them and are addicted to them. Pure and simple with no apologies. O'Neill knows of what he speaks and writes authoritatively on the subject. What SICK CITY does is takes the grit and grime of, say, NAKED LUNCH by William Burroughs and makes it coherent --- no cut-up technique here --- within the context of a caper novel, as imagined by Elmore Leonard. To put it another way, it consists of the parts of the movie Pulp Fiction that couldn't be filmed. The camera lens would have burned out.

SICK CITY neither explicitly condemns nor implicitly glorifies drug addiction. It simply provides an unblinking and stark look at the lives of a number of people, including a down-and-out exotic dancer, a homosexual prostitute in denial, a host of addicts and drug dealers, and a drug rehabilitation guru who is nursing his own nasty little secret. Points of view change frequently, and you might want to take this book in one long sitting in order to appreciate just how fascinating it is to watch everyone's lives intersect with each other. When the dust settles and the smoke clears, however, the book is about Jeffrey and Randall, two irredeemable junkies who acquire --- along with cash and some extremely strong controlled substances --- a sex tape involving Sharon Tate and a number of deceased celebrities. They want to sell it for a fortune --- gainful employment is not high on the "to do" list of either gentleman --- but along the way they attract the attention and ire of Pat, an extremely dangerous and unbalanced drug dealer who is out for revenge.

Most of SICK CITY occurs where the buses don't run, and even if they did, those who are in their right minds would never want to go there. And if you wandered into those areas by accident, you would call OnStar to come send a helicopter to get you the heck out. Even if you have not led a sheltered life, there are scenes here that you have never encountered before and probably never will see again: acts of physical and sexual violence --- some voluntary, some not so much --- that you would be hard-pressed to make up on your own. O'Neill's writing is shot through with such straight-ahead prose that the book reads more like a documentary, in the best sense, than a work of fiction.

And, while I have the feeling that this was not his intent, it is possibly one of the most anti-drug treatises I have ever read. The subject matter is such that you wouldn't read it to your 12-year-old, yet if you wanted to warn them away from that first hit of speed, SICK CITY would be the perfect vehicle to utilize. By the time you felt they were old enough to handle all of the material, it would probably be too late.

SICK CITY makes Jim Thompson's novels look like Little Golden Books. And I love Thompson's work. There were times that I wondered, Why are you reading this? But just like Jeffrey and Randal, I couldn't stop. And I'm going to find O'Neill's other novels, too. By the way, the Mark Twain Hotel that O'Neill describes here is a real place.

--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Nosebleed Fiction, August 6, 2010

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JA "JA" (Northeast) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sick City: A Novel (Paperback)

Sick City is pretty raw stuff. More plot-driven than Tony O'Neill's memoirish other books but still set in the same milieu (junkies scrabbling to get it together in LA, but just digging themselves deeper in a series of harrowing and sometimes hilarious setpieces), the novel is an excellent, disturbing, entertaining, and illuminating chronicle of two guys trying to sell the ultimate porn tape. They have all the tools to get rich, they just can't stop screwing up.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing Journey, April 18, 2011

By 

KD - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sick City: A Novel (Paperback)

I read this cover to cover on an airplane and the time flew by. I was completely emersed in the characters and the story. This is the first book I've read by O'Neill and I will certainly be coming back for more. Slash's blurb on the front cover couldn't have been more accurate.